Another image of from our hike on the Escarpment Trail. This one is a sketchbook watercolor of the view looking south towards High Peak and Roundtop Mountain.

Bláfjallakvisal. Fjallabaksleið / South Iceland interior. N 63º 43′ W 18º 48′
A small casein image painted from a postcard Corrie purchased while exploring Iceland with her family last spring.

This is a small gouache landscape I did in my sketchbook, looking down onto the Hudson Valley from the top of North Point on the Escarpment Trail in the Catskill Mountains. A small sketch to remember a fun excursion into the woods.
Having not done any backpacking in a few years, Kerry, Paul and I were determined to do a trip early in the summer to get our mojo back. Kerry picked this amazing hike, which was a perfect way to break us back in. And we needed it.
This was such a spectacular geological area, with a whole range of mountains and lakes perched high above the Hudson River valley on steep rocky cliffs. Thomas Cole painted these very views years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, and it made for a beautiful hike, the way the trail hugs the cliff’s edge, constantly rewarding you with sprawling views, each more splendid than the one before.
We camped out near a peaceful meadow, in a shaded grove of pines, and had a hearty campfire to eat our dinner by.
We also saw a huge snake on the trail, which was quickly identified by the flickr community as an Eastern Milk Snake.
Pictures from the hike can be seen here.
Of course my fellow Google Earth nerds, you may look at the placemark of our hike here.

is there a difference between failure and rejection? i was thinking of that… and willy wonka. (good eggs and bad eggs) “rejection” was created for illustration friday. go & participate!

Picasso’s old trick of painting with light never grows tired…especially with the addition of the digital camera…These were 15 second exposures ‘drawn’ with a bare mini-mag light bulb at 400 ISO. One person stands very still, and behind them, another person draws the outlines really quickly, and since they are moving so fast, they don’t really show up.
These were taken in the woods, where Invisiblefellows Paul, Kerry and I hiked the amazing Escarpment Trail in the Catskills (more to come on that). You can see the full images of these light-paintings here: Jon, Kerry and Paul

This is an illo I just did for Publisher’s Weekly. This installment of the Soapbox column was penned by author Harriet Rubin who sums her rallying cry for more old-fashioned editing as follows:

“Builders of ancient temples in Asia typically carved two huge statues at the temple gate. One holds a book, the other a sword. The book symbolizes knowledge. The sword is there to remind people to cut things off: to edit. Knowledge is not wisdom until you slice through the words you hear, judge them and are moved to silence.”